Thu October 27, 2011

Cities Aim To Control 'Occupy' Protests, But Oakland Clashes Loom Large

Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old veteran of the Iraq War, is hospitalized in Oakland with a skull fracture. Tuesday night he suffered, as the Oakland Tribune says, "the first serious injury nationwide in the Occupy Wall Street movement" when some type of projectile — possibly a tear gas canister fired by police — struck above his right eye.

Oakland authorities are investigating. As we reported Wednesday, there was violence in Oakland after authorities broke up the protesters' camp outside City Hall.

What happened to Olsen comes, Morning Edition and several other news outlets report today, as cities across the nation grapple with how to respond to the growing Occupy movement.

NPR's Margot Adler surveyed what mayors and police in different cities are trying, from sending in clergy to meet with protesters (Atlanta) to city officials marching with the protesters (Providence) to enforcing curfews (Chicago). She says mayors are sharing ideas.

The New York Times this morning says that "after weeks of cautiously accepting the teeming round-the-clock protests spawned by Occupy Wall Street, several cities have come to the end of their patience and others appear to be not far behind."

And the Los Angeles Times says that across the nation "officials are beginning to talk openly of moving protesters out of their encampments in parks and public squares." But, the newspaper adds, "looming large is the cautionary spectacle of Oakland."

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